royaljellysandwich
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GutBuster beta v0.6 release
🕑 Added 2024-10-01 00:51:51 +0000 UTCUpdate 1/27/25: The game is now released on itch.io and Steam! Betas have been removed and update posts have been made public.
Big Update is finally here!
Here's what was added:
All 40 levels playable
All 30 failure cutscenes and 40 success cutscenes done
Shop prices rebalanced and some items tweaked
New accessibility option: Custom Mode, with level select option!
A SECRET unlockable....
Music!! The game has a full original soundtrack created by... me! I made the music!
Known issues:
Though all 40 levels are playable, there's still a lot of balancing yet to be done. I polished the difficulty curve as much as I could for the first 10 levels when I released the v0.5 demo, but there's only so much testing I can do myself. Plus the time I spent playing means I'm really good at the game, so feedback from others on this end is what I'll need the most, since others probably won't find it as easy.
No new story cutscenes (the ones that appear every 5 levels to introduce the new food scenario) and the existing ones still need tweaking. The later levels have a placeholder video showing a script describing what'll happen. There's no new images or animation of Rebebcca yet either. There's a placeholder there too.
Still no saving. I created the Custom Mode to compensate so you can skip around and not have to play all 40 levels in one sitting.
Still don't know what causes the softlock where the level doesn't start, but I should have made it so that you can pause and restart the level as a workaround. Let me know if that still doesn't work.
The coenzyme powerup level 3 doesn't do anything yet. More on that later...
Massive Slowdowns and framedrops still occur if your Ghrelin Gat is at the highest level and you pick up a Bile Blaster/Tri-Glyceride. Haven't worked on it yet. Probably too many particles.
Still has that graphical glitch which happens on one frame when food appears. Some kind of weird loading issue I think. I intend to have the food fall in from the top of the screen so it won't be seen as a workaround in a later update. Speaking of which...
Plans for changes and additions in future versions:
Obviously, I need to rebalance the levels, items and shop prices.
Add a "Money Magnet" item (there's already a level selector for it in the Custom Mode) which pulls in lipids from further away as it levels up.
Coenyzme upgrade, which already makes item dropping Enzymes appear earlier and more often, is going to also make them take less shots to open.
Metabolism (Money level) upgrade will have a new feature, where there's a random chance a shot will drop extra lipids on every hit, even if it doesn't destroy the target, and the odds increase as the level goes up.
A save system. I intend to have the mode with saves not have cheats, but allow cheats in a "no save" mode. I'm thinking the cheat mode would be unlocked when you beat the game properly, but I might just allow it from the beginning.
Comments
royaljellysandwich
Tapping out is a good thing actually, that way I know where I need to start making changes and turning down the heat.
Alex Kay
Maaan as much as I was enjoying things, I had to tap out at stage 25. Things get ridiculous at that point and the damage upgrades quickly fall off in terms of effectiveness (going from 12 -> 13 damage is a drop in the bucket for what you pay). Even with a fire rate of 8 and damage of 14 the numbers quickly become unassailable and the grind sets in as you continue to eke out so few lipids from consecutive punishing runs. ... And yet I can't help but enjoy the fact that the later stages are hard as Rebbecca is eating that much harder, haha
BigMilk
I can confirm that at, least from what I played, the level restart allows you to bypass the softlock. I think it first locked for me starting level 3, and while it did lock up every time I started a level after that, I was able to play up through level 12 just restarting to bypass the lock.
